Charles R. Evans, retired president of Hospital Corporation of America and current president of International Health Services Group, endorses an effort to reform Georgia’s medical-malpractice system.
Becker’s Hospital Review reports that “A proposal before the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee calls for repealing Georgia’s medical malpractice system and replacing it with an administrative model. Under the proposed Patients’ Compensation System, medical malpractice cases would be brought before an administrative panel of healthcare experts and an administrative law judge rather than the court.”
“During my 40 years of leading hospitals, I can say that the majority of physicians I met have been sued — many under frivolous circumstances. As a result, doctors have changed their behavior to practice wasteful defensive medicine to protect themselves,” wrote Mr. Evans in a recent Gwinnett Daily Post opinion piece.
Mr. Evans argues that physicians would no longer need to practice defensive medicine under the PCS model.
“Patients would be compensated in an amount similar to what they would receive after years in the legal system. This no-blame, administrative model would eliminate the adversarial relationship between patient and doctor and allow physicians to acknowledge their errors without fear of litigation,” he wrote.
